[proto-n]

The "so called Long COVID" really just means "I got covid and I remain unwell in some way, long term". I'm not sure it needs to be questioned if those two qualifying things are given. Very well might be the same thing as ME/CFS, or might not, I don't think we have a conclusive answer yet about what causes either.

[jdietrich]

"Long COVID" encompasses several very distinct nosological categories, which makes it a difficult term to talk about. There are at least four distinct subtypes - people who had severe acute illness and suffered respiratory injury, people who had severe acute illness and suffered cardiovascular or renal injury, people who had a relatively mild acute illness but developed long-term neurological or musculoskeletal sequelae, and people who developed those latter symptoms during the COVID pandemic without actually being infected with COVID. All of those types of suffering are very real, but may have very different causes and require different treatments.

[davidt84]

Without knowingly being infected with COVID is probably a better way to phrase that.

[jdietrich]

https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/spectrum.02537-22

[4bpp]

> The final study population comprised 341 participants (90.6% females) who completed blood sampling and answered the questionnaire. A total of 232 (68%) were seropositive

How does this compare to the base rate in a similar population? Two thirds sounds like a reasonable estimate for "ever had COVID" in Denmark in 2022, though maybe a smaller percentage would in fact be seropositive. It would be interesting if self-reported long COVID had little or no correlation with having had COVID at all.

[chmorgan_]

note that this is 'self reported long covid'. For a proper study you'd need an objective measure otherwise it can't be determined what might be long covid vs. fatigue from working late hours at work, changes in mood due to season, changes due to age etc.